Dear and wonderful, hearty and brave, Bold Beings – Greetings.
These are my contemplations while I was printing the breast cancer lino blocks today. An extrapolatious philosophisation of activity!
Lino blocks drying in the sun
Live Bold List 4: Lessons learned in Lino illuminate Life
- In printing and in life the rhythms of the process must be attended to. Roll out ink. Ink block. Cover white areas if necessary. Block onto registration paper. Good paper onto block. Pages and wood onto paper. Roll press. Undo. Have a look. Assess mistakes. Repeat. No stage can be missed or hurried. You must remain methodical and composed. Habits handy in life too.
- Made a mistake? How are you going to react? Keep calm. How did the mistake happen? Figure it out. Today I inadvertently printed onto the black OverPaper (cos I missed a stage, oops!) It didn’t matter, but needed to be covered to protect the next print.
- After the mistakes do you change the goal or persist? And learning to trust that you will decide wisely! Persistance has a lot going for it. Be open, though, to the need to change the goal if you’re aiming towards something and as you get closer you can see it better and it’s not really what you want.
- If you have a good teacher she has given you good information in the past which you can recall to correct your mistake, and help the next print be a better one. Can you tell I rectified a few mistakes this morning?! One of the mistakes was on the chooky lady print… too much ink, gloopy print. I remembered I had been taught how to roll the ink noisily to know it’s not too gooey and think. In life, remember what good teachers have taught you. (That’s harder than it sounds, I know!)
- Once the prints are working more consistently some confidence comes: ‘I can do something competently’. The sense of achievement, that this is working out ok. The old faithful: practice makes perfect!
- The design is carved back-to-front and you don’t know til a lot of effort has gone in whether the picture is going to look ok or not. Sometimes we need to follow the steps and trust that the outcome will be suitable.
- I was very glad to be printing, making pictures. I feel gratitude that I can spend time doing so.
I hope that was a little reminder of some of the lessons of life. Making the list made me more aware of my own journey.
In other news I bought a digital camera (you may remember my phone “camera” stopped talking to my computer), the first I have bought and owned for myself not in collaboration with a partner or husband. The camera is red. I like it. The picture at the top was taken with it.
Tons of beautiful, winged wishes,
Meg